Greater Manchester only received 15 integral B15 Leyland Titans
and we had hoped to secure the first 4001 (ANE 1T) but it was scrapped in 1991.

We therefore turned our attention to 4015 which was the last
of the batch and also Greater Manchester's
last 'Titan' in terms of the association of the City with the Leyland chassis,
which goes back many years to the pre-war TD and post-war PD vehicles. It has
seen service with a number of operators since being sold at deregulation and we undertook
an examination of the vehicle after it was withdrawn by MTL North on 26th April
1998 and agreed with them that we might purchase the bus for a discounted figure,
less than its Net Book value, in recognition of our preservation aspirations and
therefore, the vehicle was to be paid for over three staged payments, being 1st
July, 1st August and 1st September 1998, so that it would become our 18th
preserved vehicle on the conclusion of the payment scheme on 7th October 1998.

MTL did indicate they would allow us to move the vehicle
from their Evans Road Village site, prior to us finishing the payments, to
prevent any cannibalisation, but because of the storage difficulties we have
encountered, we were not able to move the vehicle as quickly as we would
have liked.

We were given kind permission by MTL North, to visit 4015
at the Evans Road site on Sunday, 12th July 1998, to undertake a seat swap with
the other two ex-Greater Manchester Titans, 4007 and 4014, they have, in order
to secure a full set of GMT orange seats on 4015, by a one for one seat cushion
or seat frame changing exercise which we duly undertook on our visit that day.

Unfortunately, however, perhaps because 4015 was one of
only two vehicles remaining in red on the site, (everything else being in MTL
colours) and because it was parked adjacent to the fitting bays, a number of
parts had been removed from it.

We alerted MTL to the fact that parts had been taken off 4015 and local management tried as best they could to restore all the parts in question. They did manage to restore most of the body parts that had been taken and undertook some work on the mechanics but it was still the case that a number of aspects of the bus were most unsatisfactory.

Firstly, when MTL acquired it from Village Coaches it had not been particularly well serviced and there were a number of aspects of wear and tear that needed to be addressed prior to the parts being removed by MTL fitters. In the end, having reached deadlock with MTL North Ltd, we had the vehicle towed on 17th June 1999 to an organisation we believed to be Leyland and Volvo specialists, Thomas Hardies, in
Chorley.

Unfortunately, however, this opened up a large period of delay and difficulty. We had initially asked Thomas Hardies to establish what would be necessary to return the vehicle to Class 5 specification, which resulted in establishing the following list of 68 points that were needed to be addressed on the vehicle.

Clearly the costs in rectifying all these aspects, of lack of servicing for a number of years and cannibalisation of the vehicle at MTL North Ltd, would be far too expensive and consequently we concentrated on undertaking those aspects that were a priority. In that regard we asked Thomas Hardies, using their expertise, to establish what was necessary to return the vehicle to a legal condition to drive it on public roads, in terms of windscreen wipers, lights, etc., and to ensure that the vehicle was serviced to the extent whereby it would run reliably and not break down, in order that we could move it short distances from one place to another, and that it was fully manoeuvrable in forward and reverse gears so we could drive it into and out of our storage premises. This last aspect was key and crucial to us, because the vehicle would not work at that stage in anything other than first gear.

A considerable period of time then elapsed whilst work was carried out by Thomas Hardies. First of all we were told that all the work had been carried out and then it transpired that very little had. At the end of the day it became apparent that the gears would not work until we obtained a control unit, as the two we had apparently acquired initially were from a Leyland Olympian and a Mark II National.

After several trips back to MTL North Ltd, we secured two control units off scrap Titans (ref: TR101) and these seemed to sort out the electrical problem with the gears, but still they would not work in forward and reverse, and in the end we were advised that the only way to resolve this problem was to have the bus converted from fully automatic to semi-automatic and this we agreed to.

Eventually we were advised the bus had been restored to the condition we requested (i.e. that it could be driven on roads reliably, that the water system and fuel system had been sorted out, all the lights were working and the gearbox problem had been resolved). It was therefore rather disappointing when on 22nd July 2000, having collected the bus from Chorley, we were faced with the fact that it broke down just 15 miles later in Westhoughton, due to a water system problem, which apparently had been fixed, and the vehicle would not work in reverse gear despite all the time Thomas Hardies had spent on the gearbox problem. Also, the lights which we had asked to be fixed were not fully operational on the day.

Consequently, the AA were called and after a two and a half hour disruption in a small part of Westhoughton, 4015 was towed back to Thomas Hardies where they agreed to put right all the difficulties. This they did except for the fact that when we collected the vehicle on 6th August 2000 it still would not work in reverse gear.

We raised these problems with Thomas Hardies, as a result of which engineers of theirs visited our premises at Frog Lane on a couple of occasions before they eventually agreed to take it back to their premises in Chorley, which they did on Saturday 17th February 2001.

Because the vehicle would not start, due to the fuel
contamination problem, the bus could not build up sufficient air so that the
brakes could be released and consequently an effort was made to wind the brakes
off manually. Unfortunately, 4015 is a vehicle with air suspension which meant
that without the engine running, there was insufficient air to pump up the
suspension system to allow access to the brakes to wind them off. This would not
have been a problem with a leaf spring vehicle, such as the Atlantean and
Fleetline Standards.

In the end the tow company managed to pump sufficient air
into the suspension system, via an air line, to lift the bus enough in order for
access to the brakes to wind them off and then they were able to tow the vehicle
the short distance from Wigan to Thomas Hardies' premises in Chorley.

Once there the gearbox was removed and sent away to
specialists to be returned and refitted to the vehicle and the bus now works in
all gears, forward and reverse. Also, whilst there, one of our members, Colin
MacKay, visited to remove the existing six volt batteries on the vehicle, which
had gone flat during its last stay at Thomas Hardies, from 17th June 1999 to 6th
August 2000, replacing them with a fully charged set of four six volt batteries.

We also arranged for Autoglass to visit 4015 whilst at Thomas
Hardies, which they did, to replace the two offside upper deck windows that had
been damaged. Unfortunately, however, another problem was identified with this
vehicle which just seems to attract difficulties one after another. It all began
when we first acquired the vehicle from MTL North Ltd, as it hadn't been
properly serviced by previous owners, Village, and even before we were able to
collect the bus several engine and body parts had been removed.

The latest problem is that there is some engine damage due to
pipes freezing during the winter. The policy we adopt with all our vehicles, as
do several operators, is to run them all year round, summer and winter, with a
2:1 water/antifreeze mixture. In this way there is no danger of the water in the
engines freezing if there is a particularly cold night in the autumn or in the
early spring, let alone winter, bearing in mind that several vehicles are parked
outside.

Also, because we use our vehicles quite infrequently compared
to an operator, the other reason for having a constant 2:1 water/antifreeze
mixture is so that there is sufficient antifreeze in the system when we reach
winter, to protect the vehicles. They use very little water and if we didn't
operate in this way we would have to drain a third of the water system every
winter and top it up with antifreeze if we had run them with pure water in the
summer.

When we delivered 4015 to Thomas Hardies it, like all our
vehicles, had within it the 2:1 water/antifreeze mixture on 17th June 1999.
However, when we attempted on the first occasion to collect it, on 22nd July
2000, it broke down in Westhoughton, and a large proportion of the water drained
out. On returning the vehicle to Thomas Hardies' premises in Chorley, we did not
realise that they had topped it up with pure water, rather than the antifreeze
mixture that was in it beforehand and because of this, after it had returned to
Wigan on 6th August 2000, over the winter of 2000 the water froze and has
damaged parts of the engine.

We have taken up this matter with Thomas Hardies, on the
basis that if we delivered a vehicle to their premises with antifreeze in the
water system then that is how it should have been collected from them, and it
must have been obvious to them when repairing the water leak that, despite it
being the summer, the system had antifreeze in it.

The Thomas Hardie operation at Chorley, where the vehicle has been kept
for some time, closed its bus operations to concentrate mainly on haulage
aspects in late May/early June 2001, and consequently 4015 was moved from that
facility to the Wigan operation of Thomas Hardie Ltd.

Five of the fifteen Greater Manchester Titans had the rare
Leyland TL11 engine fitted, as opposed to the standard Gardner power unit, which
included 4015, being 4003 and 4012 - 4015.

SELNEC
Preservation Society successfully acquired 4002 (ANE 2T) on 1st January 2005,
which has now been restored into it's original condition. (See 4002 page for
more information on it's acquisition and restoration.)

The
current status of the 15 ex-GMT Titans is as follows:

4001

ANE 1T

scrapped 1990

4002

ANE 2T

Preserved, SELNEC
Preservation Society

4003

FVR 3V

scrapped 1993

4004

ANE 4T

scrapped 1991

4005

ANE 5T

scrapped 1986

4006

GNF 6V

Preserved in Swindon
livery by ITG Anston Mass Transit

4007

GNF 7V

Location Facilities Film
Bus, Southend

4008

GNF 8V

scrapped

4009

GNF 9V

scrapped

4010

GNF 10V

Preserved, D Rogers

4011

GNF 11V

Movie Go, Carrowdore,
Northern Ireland

4012

GNF 12V

scrapped 1992

4013

GNF 13V

scrapped 1999

4014

GNF 14V

scrapped 1999

4015

GNF 15V

Preserved, SELNEC
Preservation Society

4015

BATCH:

4001 - 4015

(GNF 15V)

BODY:

Park Royal H47/26F

CHASSIS:

Leyland Titan TNTL111RF

FIRST REGISTERED:

5th February, 1980

PURCHASED:

7th October, 1998

DETAILS:

4015 is the last of these 15 integral vehicles and Manchester's very
last 'Titan' of all.